Meet the Press

Its time to Meet the Press. Now you will have an opportunity to get
to know media personalities like never before. We will be featuring
in-depth human interest stories featuring your favorite news
celebrities, whether they be local or national.

You will see how these great purveyors of truth live and were
they live. They do deserve a lavish lifestyle. For the service
they have provided to the people of this great nation. Having
the laborious task of deciding what stories we will here, when we
will here them and what we should think about them. We would be
lost without these intellectual giants. The people of this
nation are not fit enough to be responsible for there own
actions, to decide what they will do with there own money, to
educate there own children, to make health care decisions for
themselves or to choose representation that best reflects there
values and beliefs. For that, Americans are grateful.

We are going to give you the ability to contact these individuals who were
previously inaccessibly to the general public. You will have the ability
to thank them personally, for all there sacrifices for the greater good
of this nation.

The Show

Meet the Press 1947–Present

Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program that is broadcast on
NBC. It is the longest-running program in television history, though its current format bears little resemblance to the one it debuted with on November 6, 1947. Like similar shows that have followed it,
Meet the Press specializes in interviews with national leaders on issues of politics, economics, foreign policy and other public affairs, along with panel discussions that provide opinions and analysis. It originates from
NBC's Washington, DC studios.

The longevity of Meet the Press can be illustrated in consideration of the fact that the program debuted during what was only the second official "network television season" for American television. One historical landmark of the program is that it was the first on which a sitting U.S. president,
Gerald Ford, appeared on a live television network news program, which occurred on the November 9, 1975, broadcast.

The program has been hosted by 12 different moderators to date, beginning with creator
Martha Rountree.
F. Chuck Todd, who also currently serves as political director, became the current moderator in September 2014

Currently, the hour-long program airs in most markets at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (live in the Eastern Time Zone, and on tape delay elsewhere), although its timeslot may vary depending on the market due to commitments by affiliate to air religious, educational or local news, paid and public affairs programming (as an example,
NBC owned-and-operated station
WNBC in New York City airs the program at 10:30 a.m. on local time).
Meet the Press is also occasionally pre-empted due to sports events held outside of the U.S. that necessitate live network coverage in the morning (such as the French Open tennis tournament or the
Monaco Grand Prix). The program is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. and early Monday mornings at 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time on
MSNBC (whose audio feed is also simulcast on
Sirius/XM Satellite Radio), and on early Monday mornings as part of
NBC's "All Night" lineup. The program is also syndicated by Westwood One to various radio stations around the United States, as well as on
C-SPAN Radio as part of its replays of the Sunday morning talk shows.

Format

The program's format consists of an extended one-on-one interview
with the host, and is sometimes followed by a roundtable discussion or
one-on-two interview with figures in adversarial positions, either
Congressional members from opposite sides of the aisle or political
commentators. Originally a half-hour program for most of its history,
the show expanded to
60 minutes starting with the September 20, 1992,
broadcast.

The program also features in-depth examinations of
facts behind political and general news stories (particularly as part of a segment called the "Nerdscreen," introduced after
F. Chuck Todd assumed duties as moderator, which is conducted on a touchscreen within the main set), as well as feature reports by the moderator or other
NBC News correspondents centering on socioeconomic issues; general news stories of note that occurred the previous week are also discussed and reported. Occasionally, a final segment called "The
Meet the Press Minute" airs, which is devoted to topical clips from the show's extensive archives.

History

Meet the Press began on radio on the Mutual
Broadcasting System in
1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, a program to promote The American Mercury, a magazine that Lawrence E. Spivak had purchased in 1939. Before the program aired, Spivak asked journalist
Martha Rountree, who had worked in radio and had been employed by Spivak as a roving editor for the magazine, to critique the plans for the new radio show. Based on her advice, Rountree
created a new radio program that she called The American Mercury, on
October 5, 1945.

On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the television rights to the program were purchased by
General Foods which began to air the show on the
NBC television network with the title shortened to simply Meet the Press; the radio version also adopted the new name. Although some sources credit Spivak
with the program's creation, Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak
joined as co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the
show had already debuted.

Meet the Press was originally presented as a 30-minute press conference with a single guest and a panel of questioners. Its first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General,
Democratic National Committee chairman and campaign manager to
Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration. Creator Rountree
served as its first host, the program's only female moderator to date.
She stepped down on November 1, 1953, and was succeeded by Ned Brooks,
who remained as moderator until his retirement on December 26, 1965. Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, moving up from his role as a permanent panelist. He retired on November 9, 1975, on a special one-hour edition that featured, for the first time, a sitting president, Gerald Ford, as guest. The next week, Bill Monroe, previously a weekly panelist like Spivak had been years before, took over as moderator and stayed until June 2, 1984.

For the next seven and a half years, the program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against
ABC's This Week with David Brinkley. Roger Mudd and Marvin
Kalb, as co-moderators, followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace (who would later to go on to a much longer run as host of the rival program
Fox News Sunday) from 1987 to 1988. Garrick Utley, then hosting Weekend Today, concurrently hosted Meet the Press from 1989 through December 1, 1991. All this occurred despite the increasing ratings of
NBC News' other programs (and those of the network generally) during that period. The program originally aired at noon Eastern Time every Sunday, before moving to a 9:00 a.m. slot by the early 1990s.

Tim Russert

Network officials, concerned for the show's future, turned to
Tim Russert,
the network's
Washington, D.C., bureau chief. He took over as moderator
of Meet the Press on December 8, 1991, and remained with the program
until his death on June 13, 2008, becoming the longest serving moderator
in the program's history.

Under Russert, the program was expanded to one hour and became less of a televised press conference, focusing more on Russert's questions and comments; Russert also engaged in longer in-depth interviews and hosted panels of experts to discuss the topics featured in that week's broadcast. Russert signed off each edition by saying, "That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press."

During the professional football season, Russert, a native of Buffalo, New York and an avid fan of the
Buffalo Bills, sometimes added, "Go Bills!," and occasionally would ask panelists, "How 'bout those Sabres?"
if Buffalo's NHL hockey team was doing well. Spoofs of the show featured
in a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live often reflected his
impromptu additions in support of the two professional sports
franchises. By 2006, Meet the Press was the highest-rated program among
the Sunday morning talk shows.

Russert died on June 13, 2008, of a sudden coronary thrombosis (caused by a cholesterol plaque rupture). Former
NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw hosted a special edition of Meet the Press dedicated to the life of Russert on June 15, 2008, in which Russert's
chair was left empty as a tribute.

After Tim Russert

Mark Whitaker was named by
NBC News as the division's
Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and was given "executive oversight" of Meet the Press.

Tom Brokaw

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams acted as moderator of the first show following the June 15 tribute to Russert, with the same guests and subject matter that Russert
was planning for when he died.

Following Russert's death, Tom Brokaw was named the interim moderator
through the 2008 general elections. Brokaw followed Russert's tradition by signing off with "We'll be back next Sunday because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press" (a sign-off that would continue to be used by his successors as moderator). In September of that year, the show was presented with limited commercial interruption.

On August 10, David Gregory moderated the panel discussion during the
second half-hour of the broadcast, while
Brokaw anchored the first
half-hour from the site of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The following
week on August 17, he moderated the entire broadcast. It was also
reported on December 1, 2008, that the December 7 broadcast would be
Brokaw's last, with Gregory becoming the new permanent host the
following Sunday.

David Gregory

David Gregory began his tenure as moderator on December 14, 2008.
Four days after Gregory's first regular broadcast, on December 18, NBC
News political director
F. Chuck Todd was named contributing editor of
Meet the Press. Throughout Gregory's tenure as moderator, Meet the Press
experienced significant ratings declines. In the final three months of
2013, the program placed third among the Sunday morning talk shows in
total viewership, behind CBS's Face the Nation and ABC's This Week for
the first time since 1992; it also experienced the lowest ratings in the
show's entire history among the key 25-to-54 age viewing demographic
during this period. NBC management became uncertain as to the future
direction of the program.

A new set was introduced on May 2, 2010, featuring video screens and
a library-style set with bookshelves; David Gregory would preview the
guests to be featured during each week's broadcast using a large video
screen. Different, modified intro music was also introduced, with the
Meet the Press theme music in a shorter "modernized [style]... the
beginning repeated with drum beats" (see "High-definition broadcasting"
below for additional information).

In response to declining viewership, rumors surfaced in August 2014 that Gregory would be replaced as the program's moderator. NBC News President
Deborah Turness apparently had held discussions with
Jon Stewart (host of Comedy Central's satirical news program The Daily Show) to replace Gregory,
which Stewart later confirmed in a Rolling Stone interview, saying, "My
guess is they were casting as wide and as weird a net as they could. I'm
sure part of them was thinking, 'Why don't we just make it a variety
show?'"

On August 14, 2014, Turness announced that
F. Chuck Todd, NBC's chief White House correspondent, would take
over the role of moderator on September 7, 2014.

The set utilized from March 17, 1996 to April 25, 2010 had been
designed as an experimental set for high-definition broadcasting;
several editions of the program (including the first broadcast of a
regular series on a major television network in HD) had aired in the
format in the 1990s over experimental HD station WHD-TV in Washington,
D.C. Despite this, the program continued to be transmitted in 480i
standard definition over the
NBC network itself. On May 2, 2010, Meet
the Press became the last
NBC News program to convert to high
definition, and unveiled a new set consisting of large video screens
mostly used to display Washington scenery, satellite interview subjects
and moderator and subject talking points, along with graphics
onward together produced
for the format.